Established in the 1980’s and based in the great border city of Carlisle, we are one of the largest independent bike stores in the UK stocking some of the sport’s biggest and most innovative brands both online and from our retail store. With industry-leading bikes from the likes of Specialized and Cannondale plus clothing and accessories from ORTLIEB, KASK, Five Ten, Fox Racing, Brooks saddles and Castelli to name but a few with much more available.

Five Ten Impact Pro Review

Words by scotbAdmin

on 06/06/2018 12:10:47

We’ve had our hands on the new Five Ten Impact Pro now for around six months and have taken the time to get some miles on them and got to learn the ins and outs of Five Tens latest freeride/downhill orientated mountain biking shoe.

Essentially, the Impact Pro is the successor to the Impact VXi and originally, both models were supposed to continue in the range alongside one another, the VXi being the more economical but technically superior version of the Impact Low with the Impact Pro being the all bells and whistles downhill/freeride flat mountain biking shoe, taking everything Five Ten have learned over the few five years making the Impact and Freerider ranges and condensing into this one highly technical product. As it is, Five Ten is discontinuing the VXi for 2018/19 leaving just the Pro and the classic Impact Low.

STEALTH® Outsoles

On the face of it, one of the few areas in which the Impact Pro has been arguably “downgraded” compared to its VXi counterpart is the choice of SLEATH® rubber outsoles, the Pro has gone back to the tried and tested S1™ as used on the majority of Five Ten’s range of footwear whereas the VXi uses their ridiculously sticky Mi6™ as used on the Freerider Contact.

We suspect this is because whilst the Mi6™ outsole offers unparalleled traction it’s not particularly durable especially when dealing with impacts, the more aggressive pins used on freeride flat pedals and gnarly rocks. This should make the Pro’s quite a lot more durable than its VXi predecessor.

That said, this S1™ outsole sports an all-new dotty print which is size specific (meaning, the layout of the grooves is different depending on the size of shoe you require) and has been designed to offer maximum grip on and off the pedal, we’ve found it to be quite effective but for obvious reasons you’re never going to match a pair of Freerider Contacts for out and out grip.

Construction

Also aiding durability is the Pro’s polyurethane (PU) midsole, this isn’t anything new, in fact, it's almost the same as the one used for the ‘Classic’ Impact Low and Impact High among others. The inclusion of the PU midsole should mean that the shoes are more resilient to continual impacts overtime, the Moulded EVA midsoles used in the VXi have a tendency to sort of become flattened out which means they become less effective in absorbing shocks after a while so this is a welcomed change.

Up top, the Pro features the same lightweight synthetic upper which is water resistant, it's largely the same as the one originally developed for the Impact VXi and VXi Clipless many years ago in response to riders complaining that the Impact models available at the time would basically become big sponges and where hard to dry.

As you would expect for performance cycling footwear, the soles are stiff and supportive for those long trail rides but not so stiff that you’ll struggle to feel where your foot is on the pedals.

The development of the Impact Pro has also taken a nod or two from the new Hellcat Pro with the addition of impact resistant Poron foam around the toe box, at time of writing only the Hellcat Pro and Impact Pro feature this foam to protect riders from forward impacts such as stray rocks.

Conclusion

All in all, we’re really pleased with Five Ten’s new Pro ranges, both the Impact Pro and the Freerider Pro launched last year are fantastic additions, a couple more colours for the Impact would be welcome in 2019.

It’ll be more durable than previous versions of the Impact, the fit is fantastic and features a ton of features which make this a great choice for riders who take the more rugged routes, freeride, downhill riders - if you’re a trail rider then the Impact Pro might be a little bulky for you in which case try the Freerider Pro which we reviewed last year.

The £125 price point seems to be the sweet spot for Five Ten’s high-performance footwear range and it's worth pointing out that the Impact Pro is just £20 more than the Impact Low yet is a vastly superior shoe to the point we are considering the Impact Low’s future here at Scotby, if the look of the Pro isn’t quite for you then consider the Sam Hill 3, it's essentially an Impact Low but features the same weather resistant synthetic upper as the Pro and is currently £115.